Blog

In the first of a two-part series, we examine the critical role that location-based data plays in an organization’s crisis response efforts and how compounding crises lead to an even more immediate need.

While initial outbreaks of COVID-19 hit densely-populated, urban areas of the United States the hardest, the coronavirus is now beginning to surge across less populated parts of America.

At the annual Origami Risk User Conference, attendees are able to participate in client-led sessions covering a wide range of topics including GRC, underwriting, safety, audits, and claims administration, to name just a few. During these sessions, presenters demonstrate and answer questions about how they are using the Origami platform to address “real-world” challenges.

To make these peer-to-peer learning opportunities more widely available throughout the year, Origami Risk recently held the first of what will be an ongoing series of client forum webinars—client-only events in which a select group of client presenters share how they are using the system. Given the ongoing challenges that organizations are facing as they deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, the topic of the first client forum webinar was titled “Using Your Existing Technology to be Agile in a Rapid Shock Environment.” …read more

In May 2020, Origami hosted a number of virtual RIMS webinars in-place of the RIMS 2020 Annual Conference, which was cancelled due to coronavirus. One of the five sessions Origami offered, “Driving Customer Satisfaction with Digital Engagement,” was led by Tim Cuckow, Senior Sales Executive, John Carolan, Senior Sales Executive, and David Duden, Strategic Relationships Executive. The presentation highlighted how stakeholders across the insurance value chain (i.e., insurers, pools, and TPAs) can leverage new digital engagement tools and predictive analytics to make underwriting and claims administration more efficient, differentiate their offerings, and drive agent and policyholder satisfaction.

The economy is reopening whether organizations are prepared or not. What does restarting business operations look like in a world reeling from a pandemic outbreak and the problems that come with it?

A staggering 40% of businesses fail to reopen following a disaster and another 25% fail within one year following a disaster, according to a report published by Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Even organizations that survive disasters can remain fragile, experiencing disruption for years to come. While FEMA’s statistics were built upon “normal” disruptions—hurricanes, tornadoes, floods—we can see how impactful contained disasters are to businesses, leaving the world to wonder what impact the coronavirus outbreak will have on the global economy.

Even with limited resources, ERM and BCM programs can still succeed.

“Boards are quickly creating risk committees focused on crisis planning and remote work data privacy—and they want a chief risk officer on speed dial,” writes Arianne Cohen in Risk Manager is Suddenly a Hot Job, a Bloomberg Businessweek article published in April that examines how the COVID-19 pandemic has brought the role (and responsibilities) of risk manager front and center. Interviewed by Cohen for the article, crisis management specialist Jonathan Bernstein sums the role up this way: “The job is about managing ‘wars you didn’t start, which will require immense resources to win, with domino-like consequences that contain a whole list of potential subcrises.’”

As states across the country begin to ease into reopening amid COVID-19, the challenges of governmental risk pool members continue to surmount—fiscal health is threatened from growing economic uncertainty, entity budgets are being decimated as a result, and more is being asked of organizations with fewer resources at hand.

All of which is only the tip of the iceberg when considering the adverse effects just these few challenges are already having on necessary, government-funded public services like trash collection, fire and police protection, and more.

What are the critical elements that should most influence your choice of a Risk Management Information System (RMIS)? Along with assessments of the flexibility, scalability, security, and usability of the solutions under consideration, the technology support you’ll receive should also be factored into the decision.

In recent months, the need for organizations to respond quickly to the spread of COVID-19 has made the importance of choosing based on a balance of all of these criteria even more evident. The Importance of a Trusted Service Partner in Times of Uncertainty sums up that reality this way: “As organizations navigate an especially turbulent environment, those using a RMIS to manage risk, claims, and policy decisions are seeing just how critical it is to have a service team that is as responsive and agile as the technology they support.”

The COVID-19 pandemic has created a lot of uncertainty—from timelines that vary state by state as to when the economy will reopen to a lack of clarity about how prevalent the virus will remain after reopening. In the current environment, adaptability is the most important factor in any organization’s survival.

As organizations navigate an especially turbulent environment, those using a RMIS to manage risk, claims, and policy decisions are seeing just how critical it is to have a service team that is as responsive and agile as the technology they support.…read more

Modern digital administration platforms stand to vastly improve the productivity and capabilities of insurers, their staff, their digital infrastructure, and the organization as a whole. According to McKinsey, “standard [software] systems are typically much more streamlined and include ready-made functionality for pricing, underwriting, customer self-service and automation, and claims processing. As a result, they can improve efficiency across the enterprise.”

In fact, insurers that develop and execute a digital strategy stand to gain substantial value over their competitors. Though, if this is the case, why are small insurers across the industry still running their business on legacy software, allocating limited resources to maintaining outdated systems, and making incremental changes that fail to plan for the long-term?